John Osborne: The Many Lives of the Angry Young Man (Vintage) - Softcover

Heilpern, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0375702954 ISBN 13: 9780375702952

Publisher: Vintage, 2008

Synopsis

John Osborne, the original Angry Young Man, shocked and transformed British theater in the 1950s with his play Look Back in Anger. This startling biography-the first to draw on the secret notebooks in which he recorded his anguish and depression-reveals the notorious rebel in all his heartrending complexity.

Through a working-class childhood and five marriages, Osborne led a tumultuous life. An impossible father, he threw his teenage daughter out of the house and never spoke to her again. His last written words were "I have sinned." Theater critic John Heilpern's detailed portrait, including interviews with Osborne's daughter, scores of friends and enemies, and his alleged male lover, shows us a contradictory genius-an ogre with charm, a radical who hated change, and above all, a defiant individualist.

About this title

Review:

"Miraculous. . . . A model of what a literary biography ought to be. . . . The Osborne who emerges from these pages is a character of almost Shakespearean dimensions, grand as Falstaff, volatile as Hamlet, mad as Lear." --The Philadelphia Inquirer"A terrific story. . . . An appealing, rollicking portrait. . . . The best literary biography I have read in a long time." --Harold Evans, The Wall Street Journal"I cannot recall a biography that was so amusing and intense. . . . If there is going to be a better-written, more entertaining, or more sharply observed performance this year, I'll be mighty surprised." --Carl Rollyson, The New York Sun

From the Publisher:

Compelling, groundbreaking and full of startling revelations, a dazzling, definitive biography of the man who changed the face of British theatre, published to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the first performance of Look Back in Anger in May 1956.

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0375702954
• ISBN 13: 9780375702952
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 560